


Memorial Day

by ivorygates



Series: Naquadaah Magnolia [2]
Category: Clan Mitchell - Fandom, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Backstory, Clan Mitchell, Daniverse, Gen, Girl!Daniel, Kidfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-03
Updated: 2011-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-25 07:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorygates/pseuds/ivorygates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1. What if Danielle Jackson had been raised by Cameron Mitchell's family?</p><p>2. What if Cam's father had been Jack's CO, back when Jack was still a test pilot?</p><p>A typical Memorial Day at the Clanstead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memorial Day

In 1978 Colonel Everett Mitchell's been Stateside for three years.

Cam and Ash still ask Momma when Uncle Asher's coming home (Ashton's part-named for him in a byechance way), but Dani's twelve (almost thirteen, high school this September) and old enough not to ask. Daddy Mitchell's on-post out at Edwards in California, training test-pilots, and has been for almost a year now, and nothing easier in an oughtta-be way than they should all pick up and go live there with him, and let Uncle Roy and Aunt Lavinia -- or Uncle George and Aunt Aggie -- take care of Grand'ma Hildy and the Clanstead, and Dani's grown up in this house and knows chapter and verse about what a Colonel's Lady is supposed to do, and it's a by-damn long list of things, and she's old enough to help (even if it's just babysitting, something she's done for years, which is why every rugrat in all of Buncombe County can swear in at least three languages). And she asks Momma if they're going, _when_ they're going, why they haven't gone yet, and Momma says cats why to make kitten britches and sets Dani another chore to do.  
  
But at least Daddy Mitchell comes home as often as he can, and that's every weekend almost, because he can hitch a ride to Pope AFB and Pope might be over to Fayetteville but he can always hitch a ride hop-skip with somebody practically to his own front door. And sometimes Dani wonders if maybe Momma just stays here at Black Mountain because it's almost as good as having him home all the time, and okay, the babies aren't such babies any more -- Cam-chop is eight and a _little monster_ and Ash-can is five and getting too big to tote around on her hip everywhere -- but Momma knows she'd take care of them (she'd duct-tape them to a couple of kitchen chairs, is what she'd do). And maybe out in California school wouldn't be _so boring..._

But Momma's said what Momma's said and Dani knows: subject's closed.

They take Memorial Day seriously at Black Mountain. Flags half-staff (and they by-damn do fly one) and Sunday church that weekend has the remembering service (Dani isn't sure she believes in God, but she still likes to pretend there's someone up in the sky, like Santa Claus or Ma'at, watching everything she does and taking notes), and after it's down to the little graveyard behind it to lay wreaths on the graves of the family members there, just the way (Momma and Daddy Mitchell have told her every year since she came here to live), Family are doing everywhere they've got kinfolk buried, especially in Arlington.

But there's a big picnic on Memorial Day, too (not as big as the one for Fourth of July, which is better, because school's out by then and there are fireworks too), because Momma and Daddy Mitchell have always told her that the day is about remembering the sacrifice, and also about remembering what it was _for_. So she's up and out of bed almost before the sun is, getting Cam and Ash washed and dressed and fed and helping out with the babies (because of course the house is half-full of Family that lives too far away to make the drive today and came in at all hours last night, and of course Momma moved both her idiot brothers in with her, and of course they were bouncing off the walls half the night until she was like to throttle Cam and sell Ash to the circus). And then her cousins are setting up the yard with the picnic tables, and haven't she and Momma and everybody else who didn't get out of the kitchen fast enough been cooking (and washing up and peeling and dicing and doing every other thing) all week? And Uncle Roy and Uncle Bayliss have already fired up the _big_ cooking pit, because Uncle Jock's brought enough ribs to feed them all and enough moonshine to lay them all out cold (she's not supposed to know about that, although she got her first taste of it last year) and more people keep arriving all morning, and by ten am there's about sixty people here, but it's still only a small picnic because only about half the folks coming are Family.

Daddy Mitchell should have been here yesterday, but Momma said when she got home from school that he called and said there was a problem with his flight and he'd do his best to get here if he could, and Dani's disappointed, but she for-sure knows better'n to put on a poor-face about it, because Daddy Mitchell isn't deployed and he isn't getting _shot at_. (She never told Momma, but while Daddy Mitchell was overseas, sometimes she'd go out into the woods out back and ask for help. She figured Momma and Reverend Chambers had the Christian God pretty well covered, so she brought bread and bottles of beer and incense she bought with her babysitting money from the card shop in town, and asked Bast and Isis and Nepthys and Sekhmet to take care of him.)

He isn't here by morning, and he isn't here by noon, and that's the last time Dani has to fret about it, because after that she's too busy, getting covered dishes where they're supposed to be (not outdoors just yet because barbecue's just gone on, but there's light snacks to hold off appetites until later) and making sure that Gran'ma Hildy is settled comfortable on the basking porch with what looks like a glass of sweet tea unless you get close enough (and making sure that Reverend Chambers is kept busy _on the other side of the planet_ ) and telling Cam that she's going to _sell him to the circus along with his brother_ if he lets Ash put his grubby paws on Aunt Lobelia's red velvet cake with the cocoa buttercream icing.

So she's mostly running back and forth -- house to yard to porch to side-porch to back forty and back to the house again -- and that's how she misses that Daddy Mitchell got here after all until she circles back to the kitchen again to be loaded up with another set of chores.

She's about to fling herself into his arms even if he's in his Blues, because it's second nature to her by now to keep track of when she's picked up enough dirt of any particular kind to mess up somebody's uniform and when she hasn't, when she notices he's got somebody with him. A stranger. So she puts on her best smile instead.

"Dani, this is Captain O'Neill. Captain O'Neill, this is my daughter Dani."

She holds out her hand. "Pleased to meet you, sir. What can I get you to drink?" He's got a look to him halfway between wild-eyed and shell-shocked, and doesn't answer her.

"Captain O'Neill's been assigned to the 412th," Daddy's saying to Momma. "Captain O'Neill's orders are apparently still somewhere in Germany. Or maybe Tokyo. Or Washington. Or Barsoom. Zelda said she'd try to find them, but that's not going to happen until Monday -- if then -- so I figured I'd bring him on home with me."

"Colonel Mitchell is..." Captain O'Neill says, and then stops, as if he can't figure any way on all of God's Green Earth to finish that sentence.

"Danielle, you go on up and move Shippley's things out of the Magnolia Bedroom. We'll put Captain O'Neill in there," Momma tells her.

"I don't want to be..." Captain O'Neill says.

"No trouble at all!" Dani says cheerfully (running over the Domino Theory of Bedrooms in her head and figuring it's going to end up with another air mattress on her floor like as not). "You just come along with me you don't mind, sir, and we'll get ever'thing sorted right out."

#

She doesn't precisely drag Captain O'Neill out of the kitchen by the hand, but she'd like to get him sorted as fast as possible. He's carrying a flight bag with him, but he doesn't seem to be the _forthcoming_ type: when she asks does he need to borrow a set of civilian clothes, he says 'no' (miss). When she asks if he needs a toothbrush or anything in that line, he says 'no' (miss). When she asks if he wants a sandwich or anything to hold him over until the food's on the table she finally gets _almost_ a sentence out of him, another of those "I don't want to be (any trouble)" kinds of talk.

They're upstairs and out from under Momma's eye by now, so she stops and turns around and fixes him with her best imitation of Momma's determined look. "My daddy brought you home because you're fed up, screwed over, and a long way from home, Captain O'Neill, and really, we're feeding upward of sixty people here today and I'd as soon toss Cousin Shippley's clothes in the crick as give him house-room anyway."

Captain O'Neill looks as if he might laugh if he ever did laugh, but that's damnyankees for you. "Are you always like this?" he asks after a minute.

"Comp'ny manners," she says. "Be on my best behavior else Momma says the whole family's gonna turn Catholic an' put me in a convent." She turns her back and strides off in the direction of the Magnolia Bedroom, because it's only manners to let him cuss her out in decent privacy if he's a mind to.

It's a stroke of luck that Cousin Shippley hasn't done too much unpacking. Ship Hutchen and his parents live about six hours up the road, so they're some of the folks got in last night and leaving tomorrow or so. She tosses Shippley's suitcase onto the bed, checks to make sure there's nothing in the closet or the drawers, scoops his ditty-bag off the top of the dresser, and zips the bag shut.

"I'll bring you a set of towels. Full bath up, half bath down, that's all there is in the whole house I'm warning you right now. Beer outside in the washtubs, or there's sweet tea, or there's lemonade, you want something else, you just ask. Barbeque should be done around three, gonna be beef and pig, anything like to make you curl up an' die, you better say, but there's gonna be enough food out there to feed the Hunnert an' First Airborne so you don't gotta worry. Stay away from the crick 'less you're of a mind to get throwed in, stay away from Gran'ma 'less you want to talk religion, no politics at the dinner table, Momma's rule. No smoking in the house 'cept in Daddy's back den, anywhere else is fine, you want to smack any of the kids, you go right ahead."

He's staring at her. "How old are you really?" he says suspiciously.

"Thirteen come July," Dani answers cheerfully, "an' you shouldn't ever ought to ask a lady her age; it's rude."

She totes Shippley's suitcase out of the Magnolia Bedroom with her when she goes, throws it into her room as a temporary measure, then goes for towels. When she comes back with them the door's shut (she left it open) so she knocks, and Captain O'Neill says that if it's the maid, she should just leave the linens outside, which Dani guesses is his idea of being funny, but she leaves the towels on the hall table anyway. Between consulting with Momma, moving the possibles of everybody she has to shift around because she's moved Ship Hutchen, and finding everybody she moved to tell them they've _been_ moved, it's a full hour before she's done, and she doesn't see Captain O'Neill once in all that time.

She doesn't think about him, either, because Uncle Al has just arrived, and she's been _good all morning_ helping out, so when there's nothing much to do until the barbeque is done, Momma tells her she can run and play for a couple of hours, and she goes and finds him. She writes him a letter every week about the books and magazines he sends her, and talks to him on the phone whenever she can, but there's nothing like being there _in person_ with him, because she's been learning Sumerian but there's nobody around here to _talk_ it to.

(For as long as Dani can remember, Momma's been keeping her away from the people at school who want to give her tests: IQ tests and Personality tests and every other kind of test, and Dani always had a vague idea that it was because if the tests said something-or-other it would mean people could say that Momma and Daddy Mitchell weren't fit to take care of her. But Uncle Al told her a couple of years back that it's because the tests would show that she's a _prodigy_ , and they'd want to put her in special classes and treat her differently than her friends. And Dani wasn't sure that would be a bad thing -- because her classes are pretty boring -- but Uncle Al said it would be a very bad thing indeed, because once someone labels you, they see the label and not you. He said she could be a prodigy after she got out of High School -- but that's still _four years away_ even now.)

By the time she's called away from Uncle Al to help set things up because it's finally time for dinner, she sees that Captain O'Neill's actually come out of the Magnolia Bedroom (some of the Yankees that come to visit here just don't) and he's sitting off with Daddy Mitchell and Uncle George and Uncle Roy and Uncle Jock and some of her other uncles who are still on active duty (or just separated) over by the barbeque pit between the garage and the shade tree that Momma says is going to come down one of these days and _kill them all_ and they're all drinking beer and she'll bet dollars to doughnuts there's a bottle of Uncle Jock's "sweetener" going around too or her name isn't Danielle Alexandria Jackson (and she's going to change that "Jackson" to "Mitchell" come the day, just see if she doesn't).

Cut-off for sitting at the grown-up tables is fifteen or eighteen, depending on how many rug-rats there are to wrangle on any bright particular occasion (Momma says no woman would have young'uns if she couldn't be sure of getting a _rest_ from 'em on occasion) and either way Dani's stuck, which at least doesn't leave her in suspense. She does wish she could see Captain O'Neill's reaction to Aunt Lou-Ellen's Orange-Okra Casserole, though (Momma's said she'd mail it to the starving poor in China except for the fact that they wouldn't want it either, and nobody can convince Aunt Lou-Ellen that everyone isn't hanging out in hopes she'll bring it _every single time._ )

And they all eat until they're _stuffed as ticks_ , then the cousins organize a game of touch football out in the back forty, and after that getting thrown in the crick doesn't seem half bad, then they change clothes (those as took a dip), and come and have dessert, and after that its time to move the tables so they can play Frisbee on the lawn as the sun starts westering.

Folks who live nearabouts are starting to drift off, and folks who are going to be stopping over are settling in, and she can just about _set her watch_ by the point when Uncle Al suggests "a friendly game" and he and Daddy Mitchell and half a dozen other gentlemen head off to Daddy Mitchell's den. (She also knows that if she shows up in about three hours with a platter of sandwiches and a couple six-packs of beer she'll be let to stay and watch, if she's quiet and doesn't spook the cards.)

#

Going on three hours later she's hunkered down in a corner of the den listening to the clink of chips and the rustle of cards. Captain O'Neill's at the table, but she has no idea whether he's winning or losing; her sight-line is below the edge of the table. (Not that she can't hold her own in "a friendly game" of course, but the point on nights like this isn't to play. The point is just to be here. Tomorrow will be for Cam and Ash. Tonight is her time with Daddy Mitchell.) Eventually, of course, Daddy Mitchell catches her yawning (too many times in a row), and says, "Time enough, Danielle Alexandria," and she knows not to embarrass herself by arguing. She gets to her feet and he sets down his cards and holds out his arms and she hugs him goodnight, and says goodnight to everyone else there, and goes out, shutting the door quietly behind her.

On her way to bed she checks her brothers. Both in bed (her bed) and both asleep. Ash has kicked all his covers off to the foot of the bed again and dropped his stuffed pig. She retrieves the pig and covers him up again.

"Muh?" Cam's woken up.

"Just me," she whispers, smoothing his hair down and kissing his forehead. (When he's half-asleep he isn't doing anything that makes her want to _kill him_ , and she remembers how much she loves him.) He settles right back, never really having woken up. She grabs her nightgown off the back of the door and goes down the hall to brush her teeth.

#

The next day is just like any other Sunday -- breakfast then Church then most of the rest of their away-kinfolk setting sail. Captain O'Neill doesn't come to church with them, and Cam asks why, and Dani's about to tell him it's because Captain O'Neill is a Satanist, but she catches Momma looking at her, so she just says that she expects he'd prefer to go to his own church at home.

After the service (and she's so glad that Daddy Mitchell is here with them for the remembering service and to lay their wreaths) it's just like any other Sunday when he's home, and no matter what she'd rather be doing (like talking to Uncle Al) she has her chores to do, so she goes to strip the beds while Daddy Mitchell reads the funnies to Cam and Ash (because it's their time). Then there's Sunday dinner and then football (a game on the television in the den, and Cam and Ash are allowed to help watch, because it's still their time), but Uncle Al says that if the Longhorns aren't playing it isn't really football and football is silly anyway so she'll have the whole afternoon with him (he's flying back Monday, and Monday's still a school day for her). And it would be a perfect Sunday except that Daddy Mitchell says he's got to get Captain O'Neill back to California before they think he's _made off with him_ and so he's got to leave tonight. But they don't have to leave until late (long after supper), and he promises to come back as soon as he can, and Momma lets even Ash stay up until he and Captain O'Neill drive off.

It's another two weeks before Daddy Mitchell comes home again, but Dani doesn't see Captain Jack O'Neill again for another seventeen years.

###

**Author's Note:**

> This is a part of a long and random series (curtainfic with occasional apocalypse) spun off from the idea that Dr. Alvin DeSassure was in the loop when Claire and Melburne Jackson died. And arranged for his sister Sassy to take charge of their orphaned daughter, who grows up very different and much the same. Really, it's an excuse to write food porn, house porn, and clothes porn. With random snark.


End file.
